The meeting began with a welcome address by Mr. Ramkumar who said that getting to know the policy initiatives of the state government would help investors stay invested and also plan ahead for the forthcoming Global Investor Meet in January 2019. Mr. Velmurugan began his presentation by stating that the Guidance Bureau was the first point of contact for investors and is also the single window to facilitate all big ticket investments in the state. Some of the work done by the Guidance Bureau includes: providing information to entrepreneurs regarding the scope of setting up industries in the state, guidance on the incentives and facilities available, grievance redressal/resolving problems in setting up industry, search, encourage and identify prospective investors and motive them to establish industrial units, organize special campaigns outside Tamil Nadu and motivate the prospective entrepreneurs of other states to set up industries in Tamil Nadu.

Mr. Velmurugan added that to avoid procedural delays in getting statutory clearances from various authorities, the Government of Tamil Nadu has established a Single Window Portal under the administrative control of the Guidance Bureau, which serves as the single point for accepting and electronically distributing applications to the respective competent authorities, receiving electronic payment of fees from enterprises, ensuring submission of supporting documents, communicating queries/clarifications raised by respective competent authorities to enterprises and receiving enterprises’ responses, tracking and monitoring the status of application processing, allowing enterprises to download the final signed clearance, recording enterprise’s grievances and redressal of the same. In all about 32 clearances/approvals from 8 departments are coordinated through the portal.

The Guidance Bureau is also the Nodal Agency for convening Global Investor Meets. The Guidance Bureau was mandated to attract investments and to coordinate various activities relating to GIM – 2019. The Tamil Nadu Government has taken up a series of measures to simplify and rationalize the regulatory processes (registration and inspection processes) and introduction of information technology as enabler to make governance more efficient and effective. Participating members sought clarifications from Mr. Velmurugan during the interactive session and requested members who need solutions to meet him at the Guidance Bureau to vid further delay.